Watchdog refuses to release ‘sensitive’ costs of furnishing asylum seeker flats – MASHAHER

John Edwards, the Information Commissioner has rejected an appeal to release the information under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws.

Ruling in favour of the Home Office, Edwards said the public interest in revealing the cost to the taxpayer of the furnishing was outweighed by the need to protect the asylum seekers from protests and risks to their “health and safety”.

Protesters outside RAF Scampton had made their views known about the Home Office plans

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Reform UK MP for Ashfield Lee Anderson criticised the decision and said he planned to raise it in a parliamentary debate on immigration next week.

He told The Telegraph: “The real risk is to the taxpayer, who is spending millions of pounds per day on people that should not be in the country.

“The fact that the Home Office and Information Commissioner are hiding or suppressing this information is a kick in the teeth for every single hard-working taxpayer in this country. They should have this information. I think they are probably embarrassed about the cost of it.”

It was reported the apartments were finished with satellite television.

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Ashfield MP Lee Anderson

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The Home Office had previously warned that accommodating asylum seekers was a “highly emotive and sensitive” issue that had resulted in public protests and disorder outside sites once they had been identified and located.

It told the commissioner: “It is common knowledge that vulnerable asylum seekers are targets of reprisals or reactions, and asylum-seeking individuals or groups of asylum seeking individuals have been threatened and harassed in the past.”

The Home Office had responded to the initial FOI request by neither confirming nor denying whether it held the required information, or whether the apartments were to be used to house asylum seekers. It is standard policy for officials not to reveal locations of asylum accommodation by neither confirming nor denying it if put to them.

It comes after Labour has pledged to end the use of hotels and large-scale accommodation, such as the former RAF Scampton site and the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is set to close in January, for migrants.

A statement from his office, giving his verdict, said: “In the commissioner’s view, there is a very clear and weighty public interest in avoiding endangerment to the health or safety of any individual.

“While the commissioner appreciates the public interest in the cost of providing accommodation used to accommodate asylum seekers, in his view this is outweighed by the Home Office neither confirming nor denying whether it holds any information falling within the scope of this request.”